The design of the future of education in Vicksburg schools was honed Tuesday morning.

About 50 people — a mix of a school personnel and members of the business and civic community here — gathered at the Alcorn State University Extension Office to provide input into the Ford Next Generation Learning initiative proposed for implementation in the Vicksburg Warren School District.

Ford Next Generation Learning is a nationwide initiative that seeks to help communities and schools focus students on education that will ultimately lead to a career. The initiative creates within a school district a system of career academies to identify students’ interest and steer them toward a career.

Carl Leiterman, who is a Ford NGL national coach and mentor, and Connie Majika, who is a Ford NGL assistant coach, led the group through a number of exercises meant to get business and civic support for the effort.

David Campbell, VWSD assistant superintendent, said the Ford Next Generation Learning opportunity comes at the right time.

“We are in the midst of a perfect storm,” said Campbell said. “We have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Leader in Me program in this community and you are going to see leadership (at the high school level) like you have never seen before. We are coming pre-loaded with that from the elementary schools.”

Leiterman said Ford Next Generation Learning is at work in a number of school districts across the country, and discussed the transformation that has taken place in the Nashville school district. Nashville began its work with Ford Next Generation Learning 11 years ago, he said.

“We’ve had academy expos there and what we found was parents were coming to us asking, ‘How do I get this training,’ ” Leiterman said.

He said human resources costs, which include training of new employees, has declined because students are graduating in the Nashville area with the skills they need to join the workforce. And, because of the collaboration between the school district and the business community there, the academies are teaching the skills employers need and employers have the opportunity to begin training workers through internships and the like.

“It’s not easy to be a teacher in the formation years (of the academies) because they have to relearn how to teach,” Leiterman said.

For students, the positives are many. In addition to learning skills they will put to work in a career, “students experience the gift of belonging. Someone in the health academy will wear the health academy t-shirt and suddenly, ‘I am somebody. I belong,’ ” he said.

On Tuesday, the group formed a steering committee, which will be formed with writing a master plan for moving the project forward.

Ford Next Generation Learning is not without a cost.

The Vicksburg Warren County Chamber of Commerce has agreed to be the fiduciary partner and will actually contract with Ford NGL for its services in a similar fashion to how it has taken on the Leader in Me project for the Vicksburg Warren School District.

The project is expected to cost $125,000 through its third phase, which includes a completed master plan and implementation.

The first phase of the contract cost $20,000, which was paid by the Vicksburg Warren School District. The total cost of phases 2 and 3 is $105,000. The school district has paid $34,000 toward that, leaving $71,000 to be raised by the Chamber of Commerce.

“This is a phenomenal opportunity for our school district to prepare our students for a future, whether it’s further education or job opportunities and career placement. It not only helps students prepare for life as adults, we as a community are in a better position for economic development opportunities because we will have a qualified, prepared work force,” said Lynn Foley, president of the board of the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce.

Chad Shealy, Vicksburg Warren School District superintendent, said Ford Next Generation offers knowledge that will lead to Vicksburg Warren students being prepared for life after high school.

“They (Ford Next Generation Learning facilitators) bring a wealth of consulting to us. We have partner communities, master plans, facilitation,” said he said.

“I have a great team and incredible people and I feel like we are doing things that have never been done before. But when we saw it at work in Nashville, I wondered why do we need to do this hard-knock style when there’s a company that does this, does this in multiple communities,” Shealy said. “And they want us. They are only implementing this in three places in the nation this year, and we are one of those. You heard what he (Leiterman) had to say about Vicksburg today. He’s seen thousands of communities, and he’s blown away with us as a community. But that’s us. That’s Vicksburg.”

Shealy encouraged others in the community who want to learn about the program or provide input to reach out to officials in the school district.

“This is a community plan. Everyone in the community can have a voice in it, can be involved. If they want to be here, we will reach out to them and engage them. Just like the Franklin Covey style, together we’re better. We have some of the best people on the planet. We want to involve everyone, because the more people involved, it becomes all of our school district. This is an inclusive process.”